Papito
- 10 minutes
- 2F1M
Simple Set
$7.25 – $35.00
Papito is a ten-page short play addressing parentification, specifically how a young man who grows up without a father assumes the partnership role with his mother and has difficulty establishing a healthy partnership with a significant other. The narrator, Zoe, is that significant other who is frustrated with her domineering mother-in-law and her husband who refuses to establish needed boundaries for his mom.
Play Details
Overview
Taken from a series of plays within the collection “Legacy of a Father”, playwright, Monique Franz sheds light on how this psychological phenomenon exists among children of immigrants and the empathy needed to navigate the complexities around parentification.
Pregnant Zoe’s husband, Mateo, is late coming home for their anniversary dinner. Mateo, a Mexican American accountant in his early thirties, has spent the special evening with his mother, Julia. Zoe is furious and warns women in the audience to watch out for men like Mateo who have an unhealthy attachment to their mothers.
Zoe then must convince Mateo, whose peculiar entanglement with his mother is due to the loss of his father years ago, about his present-day priorities to his wife and family.